AMHERST — On roughly 20 acres of arable land and in three greenhouses at the North Amherst Community Farm, squash, peppers, tomatoes and flowers are growing and being harvested this year — signs of recovery after two fallow seasons.
The farmhouse, once home to apprentice farmers for Simple Gifts Farm, which leased the 1089 North Pleasant St. property, has also returned to use. It’s been converted into a duplex rented to local college students, adding revenue on top of the farmland leases.
Elsewhere on the site, 20 to 30 volunteers have cleared debris and maintained the public trails, allowing visitors to again walk between and along the edges of the crops.
“This is developing some kind of holding pattern that allows us not to sink under the onslaught of nature,” said Bruce Coldham, president of the board. Some of the farmland was put back into use in 2025, he said, after two seasons with no new crops planted and only limited use of the land.
That “good holding pattern,” as Coldham puts it, is bringing in enough income to cover the farm’s taxes and insurance. It comes after the farm board regained control of the site through a so-called leaseback arrangement with Simple Gifts Farm, which shut down operations in March 2024 — 17 years into a 50-year lease. That was when the farm stand store, which sold organic produce and pasture-raised meats and eggs, closed.
The new revenue will also help move the farm toward a debt settlement. Simple Gifts Farm carries significant debt from loans, including one from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency, which allowed owners Jeremy Barker-Plotkin and David Tepfer to improve the site — adding greenhouses, hoop houses, caterpillar tunnels and barns, renovating the farmhouse, installing a modern irrigation system and building the year-round store.
“We’re committed to helping the lessee get out of their debts,” Coldham said.
But despite a conversation with the Farm Service Agency 15 months ago, there has been no action on clearing that debt, though Coldham said he anticipates a settlement at some point.
“We need to clear the debt obligation in order for us to resolve any commitments to anyone in the future,” he said.
The North Amherst Community Farm bought the site, formerly the Dziekanowski Farm, in 2006 for $1.2 million, preventing it from becoming an upscale housing development.
A single vegetable farm, or something similar to what existed before, may no longer be feasible, Coldham said. Instead, the board is looking to bring more people onto the land — possibly through a second community garden, public orchards, or space for farmers to operate on small plots.
This year, three area farms are using the land under sublease arrangements.
Kitchen Garden Farm, of Sunderland, is using Greenhouses 1, 2 and 3 off North Pleasant Street to grow peppers and tomatoes, after previously growing leafy greens there. The farm is also growing 4 acres of tomatoes and peppers with drip irrigation and plastic mulch in the fields just north of the greenhouses.
Em Thomas, of Little Bend Flower Farm in Sunderland, is growing flowers on about half an acre just north of the large greenhouse on the west end of the farm.
Plainville Farm, of Hadley, run by Wally Czajkowski, is growing squash in the fields at the east end of the farm, along Pine Street.
Elsewhere on the site, contractors have taken down barns and improved the entrance, and the trails are being kept open through the purchase of an electric mower.
In the spring, students from the Stockbridge School at the University of Massachusetts, taking part in an agricultural permaculture design and practice class, provided a vision for the future of the farm. Coldham said this will help with the thought process moving forward.
While the traditional annual farm festivals are not yet running again and the farm store remains mostly closed, Coldham said there are ideas for how it could be used for direct sales to consumers.
